


Eyes On

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [127]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Oblivious Flirtation, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, Wingman Hevy, With explosives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28010346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Hevy helps Hardcase in the Lt's continuing quest to grab one oblivious CC's attention.  Hevy's not surewhatthe Lt's plan is, but he's sure it's brilliant.
Series: Soft Wars [127]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 29
Kudos: 263





	Eyes On

“ _I’m starting to wonder if you fundamentally misunderstand the entire point of infiltration.”_

“That does sound a lot like me,” Lt Hardcase agrees merrily undaunted. “All sorts of things I misunderstand. It’s pretty tragic.”

Hevy can’t look at him, he _can’t_ or he’ll absolutely lose it. His repeater canon has never had so much attention paid to it in it’s poor little lifespan. Hevy is entirely concentrated on fitting each explosive round in the feeder chain, yessir. No giggling threatening at all.

Lt Hardcase radiates light and innocence and sweetness and an all-encompassing air of obliviousness he’s so screamingly excellent at. ‘There’s solar winds and not much else going on inside this bucket’ that face says. Lt Hardcase is an inspiration. Hevy can only dream of being that level of deliberately obtuse. Maybe someday when he has a much better Sabacc stare.

For now though, he can only trail behind in the aura of stardust the Lt painstakingly cultivates: all glint, no glow. If nothing else, Hevy can at least make sure he doesn’t cackle and give the Lt’s game away.

Oya Torrent.

“Which is why it’s pretty convenient that at no point did anyone say this was an _infiltration_ mission.”

“ _Oh,”_ drawls Commander Wolffe after the most brutally flaying silence across GAR comms. Sometimes Hevy wondered, privately, where the void the family resemblance was between the Captain and Commander Wolffe. Other times he can see exactly where Captain Rex gets that one creepy skill of his: the one where he can stare you down without looking at you. “ _Did we not get the same briefing then?_ ” And, bonus: they have that same tone dry enough to devastate the farming industry on Tattooine. Hevy almost feels like he needs to moisturize.

“Dunno what you’re here for sir,” chirrups Lt Hardcase and what a karking vod. Doesn’t even twitch at the undertone. Wonder if he’ll teach that trick in one of his lessons. Hevy will be there front and center with boots on. “But me and Sgt Hevy here came prepared for a _reconnaissance_ mission.”

“It’s very different,” Hevy grumbles. Head down, do not make eye contact with the Lt. And do not giggle. The Commander already suspects they’re yanking his backplate, no reason to confirm it.

Head down, suit up.

Rows and rows of bouncy bombs stack nice and neat in Hevy’s ruck, ordered by color and ratcheted down to glow-bangs just waiting for a sympathetic detonation to light up the night. He’s got them liberally mixed in with the somethings – a pouchful of goodies he’s ‘snuck’ off the highly-experimental-not-tested shelf engineering leaves lingering unattended outside their lair. Tup put tracer powder in these bouncies. None of them have any idea what it’s going to do but it’ll be wild. And hey, as the first to use ‘em, Hevy gets first dibs on the name. He’s leaning to something around ‘peacocking’, given the givens.

Lt Hardcase grunts and heaves with his knees. That brand new, dual-action plasma launcher settles nice and pretty on his back and each barrel cozies up to his arms like a pet. Hevy’s not even a little bit jealous, not at all.

Comms crack an interruption of his completely unjealous admiration.

“‘ _Very different’, is it?”_

Ugh. _Obviously_.

Hevy rolls his eyes and keys off his comm. “Really, Lt? Did it _have_ to be an air-head? Couldn’t you have gone for a nice, solid infantry?”

“Dunno what you mean,” Lt Hardcase prevaricates so genuinely Hardcase could almost be fooled. He sighs. The Lt grins. There’s just no accounting for taste.

Lt Hardcase seats his bucket and keys on his comm. “Still there, sir?” he calls and Hevy has a single solitary moment of wondering if the Lt would call him ‘Sir’ in _other_ circumstances too.

He very rapidly puts _that_ out of his mind and crams his own head in his bucket. He’s gonna be polite to the Lt’s flyboy, and that includes in his head.

“ _Unfortunately_.”

“See the difference sir is infiltration is all about them not knowing you’re there right?” he leads. Starshine and giggling freshly-decanted tubies and tooka kits playing with a sunbeam. Innocent as hyperspace is short, their Lt.

Of course Hevy’s going to play along. Might not know what the end-game is, but the Lt’s been playing it long enough he’s got to have a plan. “Recon,” Hevy offers, “is all about them not knowing what data you’re after.”

Imagine though: being a Commander and not even knowing _that_ much.

“Yes!” He can _hear_ Lt Hardcase’s great big bunny smile straight through the audio lines. “No one said anything about them not knowing we’re here, just not what we want.”

Commander Wolffe also does that other thing Captain Rex does: that whole ‘I’m going to wait long enough for your words to not be banthashit’ thing. Funny. Works about as well for him as it does for the Captain.

Hevy does feel a little bad for Wolfpack. They don’t have a Dogma or Lt Jesse who’s gotten wise to Torrent Infantry predilections. Crest Squad learned to be _very_ precise in their mission parameters. Elsewise it leaves folks a whole lot of leeway to do things like, oh, say high-yield flirtation.

Hevy taps his pack, makes sure his whatever-it-is-but-definitely-eye-catching stock is all seated tight.

Oh there’s a thought. EyeCatchers. Little clunky rolling off the tongue but the name has promise.

Commander Wolffe snorts and if he thinks that’s derogatory then he really needs to meet Cutup in a vex. “ _My mistake gentlemen, please_ _do_ _carry on_.”

“Thanks, we will!” the Lt says but the channel’s already gone silent.

Well at least now they have permission to do whatever they planned to do anyway. Blows that the Lt’s pilot didn’t at least hang around on-link for the show. The Lt would have liked that.

Lt Hardcase is amazing, but he’s got a crush on a CC who’s really, clearly, duracrete thick. How many times has the Lt done the pitch-and-flex right under his nose and barely gotten a blink? And how many pounds of kinetics are they hauling, just for him to sign off before the main event? It’d be disheartening for the average vod.

The things a vod’s gotta do to get a man to notice him, really. At this rate they’re going to have to go with Droidbait's ‘catch him in midair with a jetpack’ plan, and Hevy doesn’t volunteer to be the one to make sure the Captain’s brother ends up needing aerial rescue. No thanks.

Doesn’t seem to dent the Lt much though. Huh. Hevy reconsiders. This might be part of his plan, somehow.

He thinks about it and he thinks he heard the channel drop silent but he can’t quite remember if he heard the chirp of it disconnecting entirely. Maybe, maybe the Lt’s Commander still has the link open on the sly. Maybe the Commander isn’t as slow as they all thought. Trust the Lt to catch something like that.

So Hevy knows his job then: he’s got to help the Lt look good. Just… not _too_ good. Can’t let the Lt win that easy. It’s better if he works for it.

“We scoring?” he asks.

The Lt tips his head as if it’s silly Hevy even asked. Fair. “One point per bang, ten per fwizzle. Double score for height that breaks cloud cover, style points are in play and if they can record it from orbit without extra sensors that’s a 2x multiplier.”

“And negative fifty for each lost eyebrow.” Hevy wants to make very sure they establish that up front this time. Lt Hardcase can and will cheat.

“Of course, of course Sgt, I would _never_ forget that.”

“ _The mission, troopers,_ ” reminds their comms and jackpot. Still tuned in.

The Lt nearly vibrates with glee. “Don’t worry Commander, we’ll get your intel!” A lot of work Lt Hardcase is going through. Hevy hopes his CC keeps watching.

They trade gentlemanly smiles and gentlemanly taps of bracer to bracer.

“Lt,” Hevy mutters, “I am going to enjoy crushing you.” The ‘in front of your loverboy’ is so obvious it doesn’t need to be said.

“Sgt,” Lt Hardcase cackles, “it’s gonna be adorable watching you try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fortunately Hardcase definitely is entirely aware of all of this and clearly has a plan. Even if no one can at all see what it could possibly be, he most definitely has one. Because he definitely knows he's flirting.


End file.
